“Never Surrender!” announces promotional merchandise featuring the U.S. state of Georgia’s mugshot of former president and leading Republican 2024 presidential candidate Donald J. Trump. Trump has been indicted on 13 felony counts in Fulton County, Georgia, alleging that he violated state laws against racketeering in his bid to challenge the close results of the 2020 presidential election in that state. Trump was charged in Georgia along with 18 of his attorneys, advisers, and associates. All defendants have pleaded not guilty on all counts. Trump has also pleaded not guilty on 78 other state and federal criminal charges across three earlier indictments in New York, Florida, and Washington, DC.
Above the recognizably Churchillian quote is the former president’s stern mugshot, a color photograph taken from a high angle in apparent compliance with Georgia’s criminal booking protocols. President Trump was spared mugshots in his three other cases because he is an extremely visible public figure who is unlikely to be a flight risk and whose image is widely available. Mugshots were also said to complicate the booking procedures in those jurisdictions, as the processing had to be coordinated with the Secret Service detail that protects Trump as a former president. In any case, U.S. federal mugshots are not released to the general public.
In Georgia, however, sensibilities are different. It is widely believed that Fulton County attorney general Fani Willis, a partisan Democrat who campaigned on a promise to prosecute Trump, insisted on the full mugshot treatment in the belief that it would humiliate and possibly impute guilt to the former president as he seeks reelection. It has also been confirmed that President Trump’s trial in her jurisdiction will be streamed live online, whereas elsewhere there will likely be no televised coverage. Trump’s booking in Georgia came on August 24, the day after the first debate for Republican candidates seeking their party’s nomination. Trump skipped that debate, arguing that his lead of around 40 points over the next closest contender was so substantial that he had no reason to engage with the other participants. Public attention was closely focused on the presidential race the next day, however, as Trump entered the Fulton County jail to be fingerprinted and photographed. Willis also announced her reelection campaign and launched its website and fundraising operations almost immediately after her office declared that it was seeking Trump’s indictment.
The circumstances of all four indictments strike most Americans as a politicization of justice, a charge that Trump, his supporters, and even an appreciable number of his foes have leveled with various degrees of intensity. According to a recent CBS News/YouGov poll, 59% of respondents believe the indictments are an attempt to prevent Trump’s reelection. Another survey shows that as many as one in five Democrats believes the prosecutions are an attempt to gain advantage for Democratic President Joe Biden, who is running for reelection.
In Georgia, Willis’s actions are so controversial that state and national-level Republican politicians are pursuing multiple avenues to remove her from office or defund her operations, which could delay Trump’s prosecution or prevent it altogether. Similar actions are in the works against special prosecutor Jack Smith, who brought the federal indictments against Trump in Florida and Washington, D.C. Legal experts, including many on the political left, have raised serious concerns about the validity of the charges in all four indictments, almost all of which are either based on untested legal theories or contradicted by extant law. Trump has suggested that if he is reelected, he will now have no choice but to jail his political opponents. Some have warned of civil war, which about half of Americans believe is a possibility within the next few years.
Trump is not holding back. His poll numbers rose after each of his first three indictments and only somewhat declined after his Georgia indictment, though that slide seems due to the robust performance of several of his Republican opponents in the nearly contemporaneous GOP debate. Nevertheless, their bounce at his expense seems to be fleeting. Trump’s commanding lead among Republicans remains steady and is expanding over all of his rivals and, increasingly, over Biden. According to the McLaughlin poll, taken after the debate and Georgia booking, Trump would defeat his nearest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, 72-28 percent in a one-on-one nomination contest. The same poll gives him a six-point popular vote lead over Biden in a hypothetical 2024 rematch and a landslide victory in the Electoral College, a constitutional feature that determines election results based on the size of state populations. Five other polls taken since the debate give Trump a lead ranging from 36 to 46% over DeSantis in the current field of Republican candidates, with the trend going upward.
Since the debate, one Republican candidate, Miami mayor Francis X. Suarez, has suspended his candidacy with others likely to follow. Of the eight participants in the debate, six responded affirmatively when asked if they would endorse Trump even if he is criminally convicted (the remaining two are polling in the very low single digits). At the same time, Trump’s legal woes have not translated into any meaningful gain for Biden, whose disapproval rating remains close to 60%. Some 70% of Americans, and even a majority of Democrats, do not believe he should run for reelection.
Trump’s mugshot might best encapsulate his dominance of the national mood. His picture is defiant, and it is said that campaign strategists carefully devised his pose and countenance to accentuate an iconic quality that even the president’s opponents claim it possesses. “It will be forever part of the iconography of being alive in this time,” said Marty Kaplan, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communications, who worked as a speechwriter for 1984 Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale. Trump’s supporters were positively ecstatic, with some circulating mock mugshots of themselves as a sign of solidarity with the former president, who often claims that Democratic prosecutions of him are really directed at the freedoms of the American people.
For the photo, Trump wore his standard navy blue suit with a white shirt and red tie—the colors of the American flag. His bearing, as well as the color scheme, closely resembles that of Uncle Sam, the iconic image of American national unity best captured in J. M. Flagg’s 1917 illustration, which was intended to mobilize national unity for military recruitment in the First World War. The defiant grimace also recalls Yousuf Karsh’s famous unplanned photograph of Winston Churchill, taken on the occasion of the British prime minister’s December 30, 1941 address to the Canadian parliament, which became known as the “Roaring Lion” after Karsh snatched Churchill’s cigar out of his mouth, provoking a look on Churchill’s face “so belligerent he could have devoured me.”
Whatever its inspiration, Trump’s mugshot has worked wonders for his campaign. Upon its release, he posted it on social media, along with the Churchillian “Never Surrender!” slogan, another line declaring “Election Interference,” and the internet address of his campaign website. Within hours, the campaign was advertising merchandise for sale featuring the photo over the “Never Surrender” line, including shirts, posters, mugs, beverage coolers, and bumper stickers, all available in exchange for a donation. The campaign reported taking in $4.18 million within 24 hours, its best one-day result so far, and a total of $7.1 million after 48 hours. For better or worse, the photo will remain the enduring image of the once and perhaps future president.
The Mugshot Seen Around the World
“Never Surrender!” announces promotional merchandise featuring the U.S. state of Georgia’s mugshot of former president and leading Republican 2024 presidential candidate Donald J. Trump. Trump has been indicted on 13 felony counts in Fulton County, Georgia, alleging that he violated state laws against racketeering in his bid to challenge the close results of the 2020 presidential election in that state. Trump was charged in Georgia along with 18 of his attorneys, advisers, and associates. All defendants have pleaded not guilty on all counts. Trump has also pleaded not guilty on 78 other state and federal criminal charges across three earlier indictments in New York, Florida, and Washington, DC.
Above the recognizably Churchillian quote is the former president’s stern mugshot, a color photograph taken from a high angle in apparent compliance with Georgia’s criminal booking protocols. President Trump was spared mugshots in his three other cases because he is an extremely visible public figure who is unlikely to be a flight risk and whose image is widely available. Mugshots were also said to complicate the booking procedures in those jurisdictions, as the processing had to be coordinated with the Secret Service detail that protects Trump as a former president. In any case, U.S. federal mugshots are not released to the general public.
In Georgia, however, sensibilities are different. It is widely believed that Fulton County attorney general Fani Willis, a partisan Democrat who campaigned on a promise to prosecute Trump, insisted on the full mugshot treatment in the belief that it would humiliate and possibly impute guilt to the former president as he seeks reelection. It has also been confirmed that President Trump’s trial in her jurisdiction will be streamed live online, whereas elsewhere there will likely be no televised coverage. Trump’s booking in Georgia came on August 24, the day after the first debate for Republican candidates seeking their party’s nomination. Trump skipped that debate, arguing that his lead of around 40 points over the next closest contender was so substantial that he had no reason to engage with the other participants. Public attention was closely focused on the presidential race the next day, however, as Trump entered the Fulton County jail to be fingerprinted and photographed. Willis also announced her reelection campaign and launched its website and fundraising operations almost immediately after her office declared that it was seeking Trump’s indictment.
The circumstances of all four indictments strike most Americans as a politicization of justice, a charge that Trump, his supporters, and even an appreciable number of his foes have leveled with various degrees of intensity. According to a recent CBS News/YouGov poll, 59% of respondents believe the indictments are an attempt to prevent Trump’s reelection. Another survey shows that as many as one in five Democrats believes the prosecutions are an attempt to gain advantage for Democratic President Joe Biden, who is running for reelection.
In Georgia, Willis’s actions are so controversial that state and national-level Republican politicians are pursuing multiple avenues to remove her from office or defund her operations, which could delay Trump’s prosecution or prevent it altogether. Similar actions are in the works against special prosecutor Jack Smith, who brought the federal indictments against Trump in Florida and Washington, D.C. Legal experts, including many on the political left, have raised serious concerns about the validity of the charges in all four indictments, almost all of which are either based on untested legal theories or contradicted by extant law. Trump has suggested that if he is reelected, he will now have no choice but to jail his political opponents. Some have warned of civil war, which about half of Americans believe is a possibility within the next few years.
Trump is not holding back. His poll numbers rose after each of his first three indictments and only somewhat declined after his Georgia indictment, though that slide seems due to the robust performance of several of his Republican opponents in the nearly contemporaneous GOP debate. Nevertheless, their bounce at his expense seems to be fleeting. Trump’s commanding lead among Republicans remains steady and is expanding over all of his rivals and, increasingly, over Biden. According to the McLaughlin poll, taken after the debate and Georgia booking, Trump would defeat his nearest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, 72-28 percent in a one-on-one nomination contest. The same poll gives him a six-point popular vote lead over Biden in a hypothetical 2024 rematch and a landslide victory in the Electoral College, a constitutional feature that determines election results based on the size of state populations. Five other polls taken since the debate give Trump a lead ranging from 36 to 46% over DeSantis in the current field of Republican candidates, with the trend going upward.
Since the debate, one Republican candidate, Miami mayor Francis X. Suarez, has suspended his candidacy with others likely to follow. Of the eight participants in the debate, six responded affirmatively when asked if they would endorse Trump even if he is criminally convicted (the remaining two are polling in the very low single digits). At the same time, Trump’s legal woes have not translated into any meaningful gain for Biden, whose disapproval rating remains close to 60%. Some 70% of Americans, and even a majority of Democrats, do not believe he should run for reelection.
Trump’s mugshot might best encapsulate his dominance of the national mood. His picture is defiant, and it is said that campaign strategists carefully devised his pose and countenance to accentuate an iconic quality that even the president’s opponents claim it possesses. “It will be forever part of the iconography of being alive in this time,” said Marty Kaplan, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communications, who worked as a speechwriter for 1984 Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale. Trump’s supporters were positively ecstatic, with some circulating mock mugshots of themselves as a sign of solidarity with the former president, who often claims that Democratic prosecutions of him are really directed at the freedoms of the American people.
For the photo, Trump wore his standard navy blue suit with a white shirt and red tie—the colors of the American flag. His bearing, as well as the color scheme, closely resembles that of Uncle Sam, the iconic image of American national unity best captured in J. M. Flagg’s 1917 illustration, which was intended to mobilize national unity for military recruitment in the First World War. The defiant grimace also recalls Yousuf Karsh’s famous unplanned photograph of Winston Churchill, taken on the occasion of the British prime minister’s December 30, 1941 address to the Canadian parliament, which became known as the “Roaring Lion” after Karsh snatched Churchill’s cigar out of his mouth, provoking a look on Churchill’s face “so belligerent he could have devoured me.”
Whatever its inspiration, Trump’s mugshot has worked wonders for his campaign. Upon its release, he posted it on social media, along with the Churchillian “Never Surrender!” slogan, another line declaring “Election Interference,” and the internet address of his campaign website. Within hours, the campaign was advertising merchandise for sale featuring the photo over the “Never Surrender” line, including shirts, posters, mugs, beverage coolers, and bumper stickers, all available in exchange for a donation. The campaign reported taking in $4.18 million within 24 hours, its best one-day result so far, and a total of $7.1 million after 48 hours. For better or worse, the photo will remain the enduring image of the once and perhaps future president.
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